Christian Cantrell

I'm in between right now. At work I'm stuck with Lotus Notes - ick. I've got most of my important info in Pocket Outlook on my PDA (backed up on my PC of course). I've honestly given up client side PIM apps for personal; namely becuase I'm using web-based email accounts and Thunderbird doesn't have a calendar yet that plays nice with my PDA. Admittedly, if I used Yahoo to it's full extent, it does have a sync application. Now, I used to have Outlook at work and at home and everything synched nicely. So I am in between right now. Am curious as to how Sunbird will change my life. ;)

PocketMod.com

It's very compact, easy to carry, and durable.
Can store information easily, retrieve it even easier and transferring info takes less time than Hot Sync

Did I mention disposable?

I've tried several tools for PIM over the past several years, and still haven't found the right combination. I've considered designing my own for awhile. The trick would be finding the right balance between web-based versus client-side so the same data is always available across devices. Sounds like an interesting application for Simple Sharing Extensions for RSS and OPML.

I use the $5 account at www.backpackit.com for To Dos / Notes and Outlook for calendering.
I constantly have reminders being emailed/SMS'd to my sidekick II which I don't use as PIM at all ( well except for the address book).

I haven't found a good collaborative online calendar yet. Though I have my fingers crossed for rumors of calendar.google.com

I did signup for www.calendarhub.com but haven't really tried it out too much.

Plaxo (www.plaxo.com). Talks to Outlook. Talks to Thunderbird. Talks to Apple iCal/Address Book via a third-party app, e2xo - http://www.macplaxo.com/, although there is talk of an official OSX-friendly beta around Christmas . Has an online interface you can do import/export from when it doesn't talk to your app of choice.

Just don't use the "Update Contacts" functionality too often to bulk-spam your friends.

I use a piece of paper. It's extremely cheap, amazingly small and portable, never ever runs out of battery, doesn't crash or lose data, and rarely gets stolen.

;)

Sorry, i missed Don's PocketMod.com pointer. Good one! Also nice to see it's in beta (Web 2.0 compatible!)

Just a note: If you have to access an Exchange server, I'd suggest you go for Entourage (2004 with SP@ that is) as it accesses the Exchange server properly. You can check your mail box size, access global address lists (it sets this up as part of the email account config) and you can browse it. Calendaring also works properly (you can read, post, etc, but the server admins would have to update their servers with the Entourage 2004 sp2 patch), you can share and access ahred mail boxes. So basically, with an Exchange server, if you want to do more than simply send and receive mail, your much better of with Entourage. As for synching with your BlackBerry, I think this should work with Entourage.

While I agree with you Christian that the Sidekick interface to the web needs a lot of help, I still use it plus the Sidekick device as my main PIM. In the end, having a backed up, synced up, always available PIM is outweighs the annoyances of the website.

Though it sure would be a fun activity to script the Sidekick site so that I could add tasks, etc. from the command line.

For quick notes, I always have my notepad, of course.

I use paper as well when I'm out of our home, but I use dotproject when I'm in front of my workstaion.

I use paper as well when I'm out of our home, but I use dotproject when I'm in front of my workstaion.

I've been focused on personal effectiveness for decades... EVERY THING I tried required more time to get the stuff in than it saved by giving it to me back - I hated that. In a job that uses ACT, and Outlook. I also realized that having an email box localized in my PC was just not effective. I was blown away to find - and I think this is only on yahoo - that they have the functions of Outlook (common caledar, appts, reminders, to dos,etc), but they sync to Palm and to Outlook for the PC-handheld. I have finally found a way to write letters using the same address book, and can attach my correspondence to todos online. AND (and here's the big difference) sync all the records to my palm so that I always have them..